Making the Transition

So today marks our 4th day here.  We are still working on getting the time zone change to feel normal.  Each day feels a little better.  But we are still in bed by 8:00 each night, and I've been waking up by 5:00.  The transition has been hard in a lot of ways, but nothing that I didn't expect.  I think our schooling has gone fine so far, finally today on day 3 I came up with a written schedule for each kid.  This came out of my going crazy having to come up with each of their plans on the fly while they each needed me at all times during the morning!  I have even managed to go to the fitness center the past two mornings and use the treadmill.  We have tried to eat in our apartment as much as possible to cut on expenses.  Last night we made meatballs (since they don't have frozen here) with spaghetti and french bread.  It worked out fine.  But each time we realize something we are still missing in our kitchen.  The kids and I are trying to venture out somewhere each day but we are still learning what there is to go see on foot.  We did the subway/train one evening with Ethan and were pretty overwhelmed with how to figure it out!  Possibly this weekend we'll work more on that.

The weather has been wonderful.  It is early spring here, and has been mostly in the 70's each day.  It's very breezy, since it is right on the water, so lots of times we keep a jacket with us.  Ethan walks to work each morning only about 4 or 5 blocks down the street.  Yesterday we picked him up at lunch time and walked on over to Darling Harbour, a very famous tourist area in Sydney.  They had lots to see, and a great kids play area that the kids enjoyed.  We had a bad experience with the McDonald's in the food court over there!  Even McDonald's can be different in other countries!  One of the many mistakes that they made:  Ethan ordered a cheeseburger, just ketchup for Elise.  Well he got a bun with ketchup on it!  We put this experience on our "Bad things to laugh about later" list that we have started.

We are limited on our internet usage in the hotel.  It is weird to be limited, since in the states it seems so easy to get unlimited data plans and free Wifi in so many locations.  Here, even if you buy a drink at Starbuck's, you only get to use the internet for 30 minutes.  We can't skype from our hotel because it takes too much of our data usage.  We will try to go to Ethan's office and do some things that take more data.

Ethan has a three day weekend this weekend and we are staying in Sydney to explore.  I think we'll get to see alot more of what is out there this weekend!  As you can see, I'm not being the most outgoing, exploring person by myself with the kids.  I feel much more comfortable doing lots of these things for the first time with Ethan.  The kids are adjusting alright, but I know it is hard for them too.  They basically have one TV channel that they watch which is Disney.  They didn't bring the xbox so they play games on the ipad a lot when we are here at the hotel and not doing school work.  The sibling rivalry has definitely kept on pace, but hopefully they will realize that they are each other's only friends, so they better treat each other nicely!  I see glimpses of that at times.

There is a colleague of Ethan's who is going to have us to his home and he has a couple of children close to our kids' ages.  I also have two contacts down here who I think we will try to meet up with and they also have kids close in age.  It will be fun for the kids to interact with some other kids when the time comes.

The pictures I did take yesterday at Darling Harbour were on my American cell phone and the only way to get them off my phone was to put them on facebook.  I'll try to take some this weekend with our camera that we can post on the blog.  If you are still reading you are a trooper!  This has been long.  Bear with me while we get used to this change in countries and we'll post about the fun things we do as well!

Missing America (i.e. my car, my coffee, ICE, and my pillow!),

Suzanne